Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Review

Testing:

The processor will be tested with our benchmarking suite to show what kind of performance this chip delivers. The benchmarking suite used includes both system tests, as well as gaming benchmarks. To make performance comparisons, the QX9650 will be benchmarked against other processors, including one of the latest CPUs by AMD, as well as other Intels. All chips will be run at default specs to eliminate any variables. All video card settings were left at setup defaults, also to eliminate any variables.

Testing Setup:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650

Motherboard: DFI Lanparty UT P35-T2R

CPU overclocked: Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650 425FSB = 3.825 GHz

Memory: 2 x 1GB Mushkin XP9200 5-5-4-12

Video Card: XFX 8800 GTS 640MB

Power Supply: Mushkin 650watt Modular power supply

Hard Drive:Seagate 750 GB SATA 3.0 7200 RPM

Monitor:BenQ FP222WH

O/S: Windows XP Service Pack 2

Comparison System:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 6000+ X2 AM2

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo e6750

Motherboard: IP35 Pro "Snake" (Q6600)

Motherboard: Abit An9

Motherboard: ASUS P5K Premium (e6750)

Memory: 2 x 1GB Mushkin XP9200 5-5-4-12

Video Card: XFX 8800 GTS 640MB/XFX 8800GTS 320MB (AMD 6000+)

Power Supply: Mushkin 650watt Modular power supply

Hard Drive:Seagate 750 GB SATA 3.0 7200 RPM

Monitor:BenQ FP222WH

O/S : Windows XP Service Pack 2

The system tests we will be using are listed below:

Apophysis 2.2

PcMark 05 Professional

Sisoft Sandra XI

Sciencemark

Cinebench 9.5

HD Tach 3.1

SpecViewperf 9.0

WinRAR

We will start with Apophysis. This program is used primarily to render and generate fractal flame images. We will run this benchmark with the following settings:

Resolution: 2750x2048

Quality: 500

Limit Memory use: 512MB

The measurement used is time to render, in minutes, to complete.

Lower is Better

WinRAR is a tool to archive and compress large files to a manageable size. We will use 10MB, 100MB and 500MB files and test the time needed to compress these files. Time will be measured in seconds.